Autobiographical

While I was keen to make a change in my life, I must confess that back in 1990 I had no real idea about what I actually wanted to do. So I credit the artist and subsequent good friend Pavel Ouporov and his future wife and co-creator Suzanne Scherer for triggering my move to the Soviet Union. 

At the time I felt that I was treading water: I had been working for a year and a half on the main publication at Europa Publications and felt that I was not progressing professionally. Don’t get me wrong. The working environment was ideal and all the employees were fascinating. I sometimes regret not trying to return there at a later stage, although that would have implied other paths closing down.

Something was missing. Maybe there was also a personal aspect although at the time I hadn’t seen any signs. Robin and I were still going to jazz venues, films, plays art and art museums and travelling, including a week in the French overseas territory of Réunion situated in the Indian Ocean and a week in neighbouring Mauritius where my dad had in the past done research for one of his books. The contrast between the two was striking. The former boasted the wealth and cuisine of France, albeit the food was spicier, while the latter was far poorer back then, albeit only an hour away by plane, but straddled by beautiful beaches.

And then an opening appeared.  I had been corresponding with Pavel intermittently since late 1989 when Pavel wrote in mid-1990, requesting my assistance. He and Suzanne were planning for their debut exhibition at an exhibition centre in central Moscow in mid-February 1991 and he was wondering if I could order and make a trip to bring over plaster and other bulky goods for the show where he would display works created jointly with Suzanne. 

However, in the end it was Paul Colston who persuaded me to go. At the time Paul was editor in London for the Soviet press agency RIA-Novosti (known at the time as APN (translated as Novosti Press Agency) and had put out an ad for a translator-editor to work for the agency in Moscow. It had been founded back in 1941 primarily to draft reports on the situation on the frontline in the Great Patriotic War. Subsequently its functions included the propagation of information to the Soviet public about life in the west and the provision of similar information on the USSR to the West, with APN bureaus set up in more than 120 countries. APN published its own newspaper Moscow News which was carved out as an independent publication in 1990 and had its own publishing division.

I felt personally that this was a once-in-a-life opportunity to view up close what appeared to me clearly to be the dying days of the Soviet empire that was on the verge of bankruptcy. Well, at least that is how I perceived developments from the countless press reports I had read both in English and Russian. I had no clue as to what might replace the regime, however.  Paul and I were to become good friends. He moved on from there to achieve significant renown in the events media industry and is currently Managing Editor of Mash Media. He told me that I might have heard his dad’s voice: he read out the football results on ITV’s World of Sport for 23 years.  Naturally, I had in the past. 

I went to the interview in South Kensington and was virtually awarded the job on the spot. As I had taken the afternoon off, we went for a few games of pool at a local pub. In passing, Paul told me a story of the impact that a move the other way to the west could have. One Soviet woman attached to the Embassy had totally lost it after her first visit to a British supermarket, overcome by the variety and availability of food products compared to Moscow. She had ended up in hospital, traumatised.

Under the contract with APN Novosti (translated as Novosti Press Agency), I was entitled to a baggage allowance of 100 kg on the Aeroflot flight as part of my relocation expenses. Accordingly, I was able to bring over the plaster and other items acquired in central London at the cost of the Soviet agency. However, I was soon to discover that there was a personal cost. 

So I departed the UK on Saturday, 5 January 1991, unsure as to whether this was the right decision. I had been given a single-entry visa. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of the ramifications of that status. This time, the airplane was packed and there were definitely more passengers and longer queues at passport control in Sheremetyevo Airport than there had been in 1989. Customs control seemed to take an age as the officers peered at the art supplies and other goods, bemused and shocked in equal measure. After a good 20 minutes, they let me through.

I was met at the airport by a dour Novosti translator who seemed a tad inebriated, to say the least. Still it was minus 10, so the vodka no doubt provided a degree of warmth. His name was Vadim Mazitov. I assumed that he had drawn the short straw and had been unfortunate enough to be the one forced to pick up a foreigner on a Saturday night. However, I was to discover subsequently that he was Paul’s close friend at the agency. He hailed several cars before reaching agreement with a driver offering what he thought to be a fair deal. We would get to know each other well and hang out occasionally in that first year until the coup when the working environment altered radically for everyone. Sadly he  passed away a couple of years later in his late 40s, undone by the vast quantities of alcohol he had consumed on a daily basis. 

And so I was driven to a flat that seemed far from the centre of the Russian capital on 2-aya Novoostanskinskaya  (which could be translated as the second New Ostankino Street). Only one notable building was visible at a distance – the Ostankino TV and radio tower some distance from my dwellings, a top floor flat (12^th floor), which was fine when the lift was working or empty. It will crop up again in a later episode in 1993 in another life and death situation. Vadim helped me carry up the 100 kg of goods, showed me the sparse belongings in the flat, left me a rouble advance and parted. 

However, I was not alone…